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Eden Phillpotts
at Postbridge, which is the central location of Phillpotts' novel The Thief of Virtue.]] Eden Phillpotts (4 November 1862 – 29 December 1960) was an English poet, novelist, and dramatist. Life He was born in India, educated in Plymouth, Devon, and worked as an insurance officer for 10 years before studying for the stage and eventually becoming a writer. He was the author of many novels, plays and poems about Dartmoor. His Dartmoor cycle of 18 novels and two volumes of short stories still has many avid readers despite the fact that many titles are out of print. Phillpotts also wrote many other books with a Dartmoor setting. He was for many years the President of the Dartmoor Preservation Association and cared passionately about the conservation of Dartmoor. Phillpotts was a friend of Agatha Christie, who was an admirer of his work and a regular visitor to his home. Jorge Luis Borges was another admirer.Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi, 1998. Page 218. Although mainly a novelist, he also wrote several plays, the most famous being Yellow Sands. Phillpotts was an agnostic and a supporter of the Rationalist Press Association."...among the honorary associates of the Press Association, past and present, are distinguished names such as...Eden Phillpotts." Quoted in Lord Snell, Men, Movements And Myself ,J.M. Dent and Sons, 1936 (pg. 156). Late in his long writing career he wrote a few books of interest to science fiction and fantasy readers, the most noteworthy being Saurus, which involves an alien reptilian being observing human life, somewhat after the fashion in which ethnographers observed peoples deemed "primitive" at that time. Recognition His novel Widecombe Fair, inspired by the annual fair at the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor, provided the scenario for his comic play The Farmer's Wife. The latter went on to become a silent movie of the same name, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and filmed in 1927. The cast included: Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davis, Gordon Harker and Gibb McLaughlin. His poem "Man's Days" was included in the 1939 edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse.Eden Philpotts, Oxford Book of English Verse (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), Digital Poets Society, Web, June 16, 2012. Publications Some of his novels about Dartmoor include: *''Children of the Mist (1898) *''Sons of the Morning'' (1900) *''The River'' (1902) *''The American Prisoner'' (1904) *''The Whirlwind'' (1907) *''The Mother'' (1908) *''The Virgin in Judgment'' (1908) *''The Three Brothers'' (1909) *''The Thief of Virtue'' (1910) *''The Beacon'' (1911) *''The Forest on the Hill'' (1912) *''Orphan Dinah'' (1920) He also wrote a series of novels each set against the background of a different trade or industry. Titles include: Brunel's Tower (a pottery), Storm in a Teacup (hand-papermaking). Among his other works is The Grey Room, the plot of which is centered on a haunted room in an English manor house. He also wrote a number of other mystery novels, both under his own name and the pseudonym Harrington Hext. Titles include: The Thing at Their Heels, The Red Redmaynes, The Monster, The Clue from the Stars and The Captain's Curio. ''The Human Boy''Philpotts, Eden; The Human Boy; Pub: Harper & Brothers 1899 was a collection of schoolboy stories in the same genre as say, Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., though different in mood and style. References * External links ;Poems * "Man's Days" ;Books *Works by or about Eden Phillpotts at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated) * (plain text and HTML) * ;About *Eden Phillpotts: Scribe of the Moor, Legendary Dartmoor. Category:1862 births Category:1960 deaths Category:English poets Category:English novelists Category:English science fiction writers Category:English fantasy writers Category:English agnostics Category:Dartmoor Category:People from Plymouth Category:People educated at Plymouth College